100 Quotes by Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American poet, philosopher, and artist, left an indelible mark on literature and philosophy with his profound insights into the human condition. His magnum opus, "The Prophet," is a collection of poetic essays that explore the complexities of life, touching on themes such as love, self-discovery, and the nature of relationships. Gibran's eloquence transcends time and cultural boundaries, offering readers a timeless guide to navigating the intricacies of existence. His writing, characterized by its lyrical beauty and philosophical depth, has been celebrated for its ability to uplift the spirit and ignite introspection. Through his poignant words, Gibran encourages individuals to seek their own truths, embrace their vulnerabilities, and strive for harmony within themselves and with the world around them. His legacy endures as a source of solace and inspiration for those in search of meaning and connection.
Khalil Gibran Quotes
We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision. (Meaning)
A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. (Meaning)
Forgetfulness is a form of freedom. (Meaning)
All can hear, but only the sensitive can understand. (Meaning)
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. (Meaning)
Tortoises can tell you more about the road than hares. (Meaning)
In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song. (Meaning)
You are far, far greater than you know - and all is well. (Meaning)
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. (Meaning)
Be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun. (Meaning)
To belittle, you have to be little. (Meaning)
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms. (Meaning)
The silence of the envious is too noisy. (Meaning)
Rest in reason. Move in Passion. (Meaning)
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper. (Meaning)
If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully. (Meaning)
Much of your pain is self-chosen. (Meaning)
Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun. (Meaning)
Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind. (Meaning)
A root is a flower that disdains fame. (Meaning)
Only love and death will change all things. (Meaning)
Let there be spaces in your togetherness (Meaning)
Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. (Meaning)
Remembrance is a form of meeting. (Meaning)
We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting (Meaning)
Love one another, but make not a bond of love. (Meaning)
What is fear of need but need itself? (Meaning)
Work is love made visible. (Meaning)
When you are born, your work is placed in your heart. (Meaning)
Love is trembling happiness. (Meaning)
Passionate love is a quenchless thirst. (Meaning)
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. (Meaning)
Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death. (Meaning)
I learnt silence from the talkative (Meaning)
The highest virtue here may be least in another world. (Meaning)
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. (Meaning)
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. (Meaning)
One may not reach the dawn save by path of night. (Meaning)
Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond. (Meaning)
A sense of humour is a sense of proportion. (Meaning)
You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time (Meaning)
All work is empty save when there is love. (Meaning)
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. (Meaning)
Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. (Meaning)
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. (Meaning)
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. (Meaning)
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens. (Meaning)
Your friend is your needs answered. (Meaning)
For love is sufficient unto love. (Meaning)
To know the pain of too much tenderness (Meaning)
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. (Meaning)
Let your home be you mast and not your anchor. (Meaning)
Love is quivering happiness. (Meaning)
All that spirits desire, spirits attain. (Meaning)
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. (Meaning)
Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge. (Meaning)
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. (Meaning)
When you are sorrowful, look again. (Meaning)
He who denies his heritage, has no heritage (Meaning)
Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb? (Meaning)
One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.
How beautiful to find a heart that loves you, without asking you for anything, but to be okay.
And God said, Love your enemy, & I obeyed Him & loved myself.
Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.
And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.
We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.
Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you,and it is the same now - only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.
I do not want you to hear that I LOVE you, but I want you to feel it without me having to say.
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
How distant I am from people when I am with them, and how close when they are far away.
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.
If I accept the sunshine and warmth, then I must also accept the thunder and lightning.
It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone... but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
The mother is everything - she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly
If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from behind obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Love is a magic ray emitted from the burning core of the soul and illuminating the surrounding earth. It enables us to perceive life as a beautiful dream between one awakening and another.
You are far, far greater than you know - and all is well.
Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
Tortoises can tell you more about the road than hares.
"Love is timeless....
Death does not separate the lover from the beloved."
The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.
All things in this vast universe exist in you, with you, and for you.
When I planted my pain in the field of patience it bore fruit of happiness.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!
Jesus was not sent here to teach the people to build magnificent churches and temples amidst the cold wretched huts and dismal hovels. He came to make the human heart a temple, and the soul an altar, and the mind a priest.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.
In every winter's heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a shining dawn.
The best of man is he who blushes when you praise him and remains silent when you defame him.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
In the depths of your hopes and desires, lies your silent knowledge of the beyond, and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.
The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.
Wisdom is not in words; Wisdom is meaning within words.
A thief is a man in need. A liar is a man in fear.
Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
Listen to the women when she looks at you, not when she talks to you.
Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.
All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.
Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.
Hell is not in torture; Hell is in an empty heart.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.
How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.
A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.
To belittle, you have to be little.
Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.
Be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun.
Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.
Marriage is the union of two divinities that a third might be born on earth. It is the union of two souls in a strong love for the abolishment of separateness. It is that higher unity which fuses the separate unities within the two spirits. It is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance, and whose ending is Eternity. It is the pure rain that falls from an unblemished sky to fructify and bless the fields of divine Nature.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
God created music as a common language for all men. It inspires the poets, the composers and the architects. It lures us to search our souls for the meaning of the mysteries described in ancient books.
The strong grows in solitude where the weak withers away.
I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.
Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you.
No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.
We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more,we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.
All can hear, but only the sensitive can understand.
I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.
There is a desire deep within the soul which drives man from the seen to the unseen, to philosophy and to the divine.
Man struggles to find life outside himself, unaware that the life he is seeking is within him.
In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song.
You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.
Love is not without its flaws. The stronger the love, the more it tests you. Compassion and empathy will make true love persist.
Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.
Behind the veil of each night, there is a smilling dawn.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving." The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.
I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.
From a sensitive woman's heart springs the happiness of mankind, and from the kindness of her noble spirit comes mankind's affection.
Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
When life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Only love and death will change all things.
Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.
My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.
Let passion fill your sails, but let reason be your rudder.
I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.
A traveller I am, and a navigator, and everyday I discover a new region within my soul.
The snow and the storm destroy the flower; but its seed they cannot kill.
Do not keep crying when your love has been gone. You only need Smile because he had been given you the opportunity to meet someone who is better.
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
Every man loves two women;the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born
Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.
Darkness is dawn not yet born.
I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.
Our pain carves out a larger space for love to fill.
When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.
Sit by me, my beloved, and listen to my heart; smile, for your happiness is a symbol of our future.
Do not be merciful, but be just, for mercy is bestowed upon the guilty criminal, while Justice is all that the innocent man requires.
You shall be held down by the chains of your own judgment.
Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling.
Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man's life, and it is the sole purpose of being. Is not civilization, in all its tragic forms, a supreme motive for spiritual awakening?
Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.
"Love is a sacred mystery.
To those who love, it remains forever wordless;
But to those who do not love, it may be but a heartless jest."
God has created several doors which open onto truth. He opens them to all those who knock on them with the hand of faith.
"The sun teaches to all things that grow their longing for the light.
But it is night that raises them to the stars."
The biggest thing in today's sorrow is the memory of yesterday's joy.
The silence of the envious is too noisy.
Love has the power that dispels death; charm that conquers the enemy.
Braving obstacles and hardships is nobler than retreat to tranquility. The butterfly that hovers around the lamp until it dies is more admirable than the mole that lives in a dark tunnel.
― Khalil Gibran Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
